


Sounds of Science

by levendis



Series: Prompt Fics [13]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Caretaking, Doctor Whump, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, cuddlecore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-05
Packaged: 2018-04-07 20:26:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4276836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levendis/pseuds/levendis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fact he’s not complaining should have been a tip-off, he’s not one to pass up an opportunity to whinge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sounds of Science

**Author's Note:**

> for anon, who requested: The Doctor and Clara have a massive fight, she loses her cool, punching the Doctor and knocking him out. She gets him in the shower to clean his cut eyebrow.

“Hit me again,” he says.

She reaches out and gingerly slaps him on the cheek.

“Harder.” He makes a ‘come on get it over with’ gesture, pointing at his head, like maybe she’d forgotten what she should be aiming for.

“Sorry, I’m really not comfortable with this,” she says, cuffing him on the ear.

“And I’m not comfortable with the artificial intelligence currently infiltrating my mind. We all have problems, Clara. Now hit me like you mean it. Do you need me to insult you? That dress is unflattering and your taste in novels is atrocious, you have the mental capacity of a _hedgehog_ -”

She winds up and swings, hitting him square on the nose. Poor guy drops like a sack of potatoes.

 

* * *

 

Much later, after the prince has been rescued and most of the day saved, she finally allows herself the luxury of worrying about him. What she’d done to him, what the guards had done while he’d been locked in that cell.

The blue lights of the TARDIS console room don’t do him any favors. His face is a mess, mottled with bruises and covered in dried blood. He’s moving too carefully, wincing too much: something else is wrong, not just the busted nose. The fact he’s not complaining should have been a tip-off, he’s not one to pass up an opportunity to whinge.

“C'mon,” she says softly, taking him by the arm. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

She leads him to the nearest bathroom, sits him down on a chair. He doesn’t protest much. She undresses him slowly, gently, unsticking his shirt from his skin, unlacing his boots. He looks, frankly, like he’s been run over by a steamroller and then thrown into a hedge. Hopefully nothing’s broken, or at least not broken too badly. He’s more scraped-up than mortally wounded, but still, it’s gotta hurt like the Dickens.

“Stubborn idiot,” she says fondly. “Why didn’t you tell me it was this bad?”

“I heal quickly.”

“And what’s wrong with letting me help speed up the process? I know you like it when I take care of you.”

He shrugs, hissing a little in pain. “Asked enough of you already.”

It’s that edge in her that’s bothering him, she realizes, the one he doesn’t like unearthing, and didn’t enjoy drawing out today. She’s not a fan of it herself, her capacity for violence. Still. No sense in him sulking around all crusty and battered. She likes taking care of him, after all, and he knows that.

She runs the shower until it steams, strips naked and helps him in. Washes the blood off his face and chest, gets the muck out of his hair, massages the knots in his back. She cleans as much of the day off him as she can.

“Thank you,” he says quietly as he steps out of the shower after her, quietly enough he probably doesn’t intend for her to hear. Not great with sensitive emotions, this one. She’s not either, to be fair.

She towels him off, dries his hair til it poofs back to life. Picks a kitten-soft t-shirt and pajama trousers from the wardrobe and, weighing her options carefully, lets him dress himself. Too much help and he’ll start fighting back. And she lets him make the next choice, the what-now decision, which turns out to be the two of them in her apartment bedroom, rolled up together in a blanket burrito.

Not much of a cuddler, he’d said. Not into lying around doing nothing. Firmly against the snuggling. Hah. She’d take a picture of him as incontrovertible truth, if she had the will and energy to get her hands free. She doesn’t, though. Maybe next time.

He’s half-hard against her, nothing particularly urgent, just the sleepy, cozy, sort-of-arousal he tends to experience in this situation. She shifts a little, nudges her thigh between his legs, the question written clear on her face.

“Nah,” he mumbles. “This is good.” He shuffles himself deeper into the burrito, tucks his head under her chin. “I’m doing maths in my head,” he adds, unnecessarily.

“That’s nice.”

“D'you want to know-”

“No, I don’t want to know about the engineering dilemma du jour. Thanks for the offer, though.”

“Suit yourself.” Still, he starts half-vocalizing fragments of equations and formulas and whatever it is going on in his brain, like he isn’t quite aware he’s talking out loud.

She smiles and pats him on the head, and lets herself drift off to sleep.


End file.
